Occupational hazard awareness and safety practices among Nigerian sawmill workers

Abstract

Background: There is high prevalence of occupational injuries among blue-collar workers in the construction and other industry sectors whose jobs require high level risk in physical tasks. Aims & Objectives: The objective of this study was to assess the awareness of occupational hazards and safety practices among Nigerian sawmill workers. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional survey recruited 94 sawmill workers comprising machine operators, planks pushers/carriers and planks vendors at Ile-Ife, Nigeria. A structured questionnaire developed from related studies was used as the survey instrument. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results: The mean age and the number of years at saw mill were 38.28+11.67 and 7.66+6.55 years respectively. More than half of the respondents were aware of occupational hazards. Sawmill dust (95.7%), noise pollution (81.8%) and crush injury from machine (75.5%) were the most implicated risks to health hazards. Occasional hazards were largely difficulty with breathing (56.4%) and hearing (35.1%). Occasional and constant back pain was reported by 45.7% and 38.3% of the respondents respectively. 59.7% of the respondents agreed that safety devices were necessary for safety at workplace. Face masks (78.7%), protective goggle (40.4%) and hand gloves (18.1%) were implicated as necessary devices. Only 34.0% of the respondents use face mask regularly as a safety device. However, 72.3% to 79.8% of the respondents never utilized safety devices. Conclusion: There was high level of awareness but incorrect conceptualizations of occupational hazards among Nigerian sawmill workers. The workers were exposed to various occupational injuries but showed poor compliance with safety devices utilization.

Determinants of Knowledge of Occupational Hazards among Workers in Automobile Assembly Plants

“…21 Unlike our study, it was reported that majority of the workers (52.7%) in an automobile assembly plant in Kaduna, Nigeria were married, 19 also majority of the workers (72.0%) in a refinery at Kaduna were married.Also, majority of the workers (67.0%) in a sawmill in Ile-Ife, Nigeria were married. 22 This higher proportion of single respondents in this study may be because majority of the respondents are males and they are in the younger age group compared to the older age groups in the other studies cited.…”

Utilization of personal protective equipment among sawmill workers in Ilorin metropolis, north-central Nigeria

“…Pre-testing of the questionnaire was carried out among 30 randomly selected sawmill workers in Offa Local Government Area of Kwara State. Data collected from the questionnaire were analyzed using SPSS 16.0 32% of the sawmill workers used PPE in Ilorin (10) and Ile-Ife (11) respectively. However, the utilization of PPE was much higher as reported by a study done in Ghana among workers of small scale sawmill workers where only 30% of the respondents never use any PPE (12).…”

Knowledge of Workplace Hazards, Safety Practices and Prevalence of Workplace-related Health Problems among Sawmill Workers in Sokoto, Nigeria

“…Even though, compliance with many of the key safety practices was sub-optimal among the respondents in this study, the levels are relatively higher than those obtained in studies conducted among sawmill workers in other cities across Nigeria. [16][17][18] A study among sawmill workers in Ile-Ife, Nigeria, 16 reported that 72.3 to 79.8% of respondents have never utilized any safety device. Another study among sawmill workers in North-central Nigeria, 17 reported that less than 20% of participants wore protective devices.…”

“…Sawmill workers who have been in practice for at least 6 months and consented to participate in the study were considered eligible for this study. The sample size was estimated at 215 using the Fisher's formula for estimating minimum sample size for descriptive studies, 20 an 85.1% prevalence of awareness of at least one workplace hazard among sawmill workers from a previous study, 16 a precision level of 5% and an anticipated participant response rate of 95%. The eligible study subjects were selected by systematic sampling technique in the clusters of sawmills and wood shops in Sokoto metropolis, Nigeria.…”

“…[12][13][14][15] A cause for concern is the generally poor knowledge of occupational hazards and their prevention, the abysmally low level of compliance with occupational health and safety regulations, and the high prevalence of workplacerelated health problems in studies conducted among sawmill workers in Nigeria. [16][17][18][19] It is also disturbing that contrary to occupational health and safety regulations that mandate employers of labor to educate their employees on the workplace hazards to which they are exposed, and their prevention, reports from studies conducted in Nigeria and other sub-Saharan African countries showed that majority of sawmill workers never had any training on occupational health and safety, and were either unaware, or became aware of their workplace hazards after experiencing the diseases and injuries associated with them. 9,18 Prevention of occupational hazards and the associated diseases, accidents and injuries cannot be promoted among sawmill workers if they are unaware of their workplace hazards or comply with occupational health and safety regulations.…”